Falls

I don't understand, he says, and for once we are in total agreement because neither do I. I know that the words came out of my mouth, rolled from my tongue, but they feel as foreign to me as might the shape of Garmr's neck beneath that thick mane.

In the tiny silence, my mind wheeled back to the troupe of dancers that had come to visit our family when I was very small. They were nomads, unwilling to put down any kind of roots, but their leaping and twirling and dancing had captivated my attention. It felt like both order and chaos, like something pulled from some other planet far beyond our own. When I had asked them where such movements came from and if they had practiced them together, the pretty flaxen-haired mare had chuckled before answering, No, bebe. It comes from the heart. I do not think, I have no time. My body knows what to do, I only follow.

Was that what had happened to me? It seems a far cry to associate such beautiful dancing with the likes of my proclamation, but it feels like the closest I have gotten.

Either way, it does not truly matter. I have made my bed and now there is little else left but to lie in it.

His command, quiet though it is, makes my ears twitch and I consider how I shall go about doing such a thing when even the act of breathing lights fires across my body. The alternative, though, to deny him, feels fraught with wrongness in a way I can't quite articulate. He had said he would not hurt me, but would he leave me here like this? Would he turn away and opt to abandon me?

After all, he did not say it back.

And so, even though it hurt, even though it sent me into a wheezing fit that had me leaning against him or a tree - whichever was nearest - for support, I did it. I rose on shaking legs, to follow him back to the place that I had been desperate to escape mere days ago.

OOC: Readers, please don't ever settle for this kind of relationship in real life <3 You are worth someone who treats you right and does not hurt you. <3